Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

摸

mō

to touch; to feel (with the hand); to caress

Phono-semantic compound 形聲
HSK 4
TOCFL 5
radical 手
14 strokes

Etymology graph

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sound component
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *maː, *maːɡ): semantic 手 (“hand”) + phonetic 莫 (OC *maːɡ).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

meaningChinese手 “hand (Classifier: 隻／只 m c mn; 雙／双 m mn; 對／对 c)”
soundChinese莫 “none; nothing; not anything”

Meanings

character

to touch; to feel (with the hand); to caress
to fish for; to fumble; to grope for
to feel out; to sound out
to feel one's way; to grope
to be sluggish

國語辭典 definitions

用手接觸或撫摩。例：觸摸、撫摸　◎
揣測、透過試探而了解。例：我摸準了他的脾氣，才敢如此做。
抓。例：摸牌
拖延。例：他動作緩慢，摸了半天才出門。
帶探索意思的掏取。例：只見他慌慌張張的從口袋裡摸了半天，才摸出兩個銅板來。

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 摸 was written 字形演變

Small seal
說文小篆
Shuowen, c. 100 CE
Regular
楷書
since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
Wiktionary: 摸